Another regular season has come and gone. In a season that was defined by utter craziness throughout, the final week was laced with mostly expected results. Previously #22 Wichita State, however, suffered an unexpected defeat to Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley Tournament semifinals. That loss is part of a less than spectacular NCAA Tournament résumé that will have Gregg Marshall’s Shockers sweating all the way up to Selection Sunday. This week’s Quick N’ Dirty is after the jump.

Quick N’ Dirty Analysis.

• Kansas finishes the regular season at #1. The Jayhawks finished the regular season with a bang, earning final week victories at #22 Texas and at home versus #18 Iowa State. Bill Self’s group, which had already clinched at least a share of its 12th straight Big 12 title a week ago, secured the outright league title with Monday night’s win in Austin. Kansas has things humming along quite nicely right now, having no losses since a visit to Iowa State on January 25. The Jayhawks are the favorite to take home the Big 12 Tournament title this week in Kansas City and earn the top overall seed when the NCAA Tournament bracket is released on Sunday.
• #7 North Carolina is the ACC regular season champion. The Tar Heels finished the ACC slate with a 14-4 mark — good enough to take home the regular season crown by a single game over #3 Virginia and #11 Miami (FL). North Carolina clinched the title on Saturday evening with a road win over archrival #17 Duke. The Tar Heels showcased their rebounding prowess in the victory, destroying the Blue Devils on the glass by a preposterous 64-29 margin. Will North Carolina take home the ACC Tournament title as well? This week’s event in Washington, DC, will be a must-watch from Thursday through Saturday.
• Is anyone playing better than #2 Michigan State? It’s stunning that arguably the hottest team in the country did not even win its own conference. While #10 Indiana took home the outright regular season Big Ten title, it is Tom Izzo’s Spartans that are the favorite entering this week’s Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis. Michigan State finished the regular season on a six-game winning streak where its smallest margin of victory was 12 points. With seniors Denzel Valentine and Bryn Forbes playing their best basketball of the season, the sky is really the limit for Sparty.

Game of the Week. All the conference tournaments. Trust us. Consuming as much basketball as possible this week is a good idea. It does not get much better than this. Enjoy.

Conference Call: Big Ten (6), Big 12 (6), ACC (5), Pac-12 (4), Big East (2), SEC (2),

WCarey (318 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2016 at 10:01 am by Walker Carey and is filed under blogpoll, feature, Regular Features. Tagged: bryn forbes, Denzel Valentine, duke, indiana, iowa state, kansas, miami (fl), michigan state, north carolina, rtc25, texas, virginia, wichita state. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.